Numbers 14: It’s Gonna Be Worth It
Some people have the gift of encouragement. That is, some people have the gift of being able to inspire courage in others. Isn’t this the most beautiful gift? We live in a world teeming with discouragement. Everywhere we look we see another opportunity to despair, give up, quit. And yet, God has graciously peppered our earth with those precious gems, those people who speak words of life, hope, beauty, truth. Those people who encourage our souls.
Caleb and Joshua were such men. After wandering for 40+ years in a wilderness, God is about to bring his nation of Israel into the promised land, the beautiful fulfillment of His promise–the good land, flowing with milk and honey! They were so close! They’d made it. Now was the time! Woohoo! So the people send spies into the land to scope out the scene. Twelve men were sent.
Ten brought back discouragement.
Two brought back encouragement.
Those ratios are pretty consistent to our world, would you agree? For every two encouragers we meet about ten discouragers. Good thing the encouragers are so powerful!
But what was their message? A few things to note:
- The ten discouragers were not dishonest, they told the truth.
They simply reported what they saw:
“We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in this land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan” (Numb. 13:27-29)
All of this is fact. It did have milk and honey. The people in the land were strong. They were the descendants of Anak (a mighty people). They were very accurate in reporting the facts.
Just like the most discouraging people in our lives.
Isn’t that the case? Don’t you love those people who seem to delight in reporting negative facts, asking negatively leading questions, and highlighting the most negative aspects of everything. Nothing is false, just discouraging. That was the problem with the ten spies. Nothing false about it, but they did not see with eyes of faith.
Eyes of faith encourage others. Why?
Because eyes of faith can see the unseen.
Caleb and Joshua saw with eyes of faith. They saw the same land, the same Hittites, the same Jebusites, the same descendents of Anak. He saw who they were.
But they saw them all in relation to who God is. And they saw the unseen.
In Numbers 14 we see this. When the children of Israel are all afraid and unwilling to take the land, when they want to run and cower and fear, when they are dragged down in discouragement and want nothing to do with fulfilling the promises of God. Caleb and Joshua tore their clothes and this is what they said to all the congregation of the people of Israel,
“The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into the land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey.”
In other words, “Yes, there are giants. Yes there are obstacles. Yes there will be a fierce battle. But the land flows with milk and honey!”
In other words, It’s gonna be worth it.
Oh how we need these people today! People who can simply smile and say, “It’s gonna be worth it.” No matter what we face, the land of eternity for which we have been prepared–it’s gonna be worth it. And for those of us who have been given the gift of faith and called to be believers, it is our job to use this faith to speak encouragement to a hurting world.
It’s gonna be worth it.
Often that’s all we can say. Often there is no other reasoning or words of comfort. But we can rest assured that it’s gonna be worth it. I love the Rita Springer song that says this same thing. I pray you are blessed as you listen and watch. Because it is gonna be worth it.
What Love Looks Like
When I woke this morning at 6am, he was already gone. My dad, that is. I don’t know what time he left to get back to the hospital with mom. The night before last he slept here until 12:30am and then was back by her side by 1am to be sure she was alright. There’s no extra bed in her hospital room, so he just sits in a chair by her side. He helps her go to the bathroom. Cleans her up, gets her water, makes her laugh. He challenges her to do one more leg lift, insists she do 10 “windshield wiper” exercises and then produces–to her great delight–a dark milky way candy bar from his jacket pocket. Her reward.
The truth is that he is her reward.
My dad is the greatest earthly gift my mom could ever imagine. This year my he will turn 69 years old. He and mom have been married for 40 of those. He is the hardest working man I have ever met. When he was 15 he wanted his own bedroom so he built one on to his parents’ small house–by himself. Bought the materials and built the whole darn thing all by himself. That tells you a little bit about my dad. He once wanted to repaint his car so he converted an old shop-vac into a paint sprayer and did it himself. He played college football at Linfield. He served in the Vietnam War. He was Athletic Director and coach for more years than I can count. He built all three of our homes with his own hands … after getting home from work.
But now is the real work.
The toughest coaching job he’s ever had.
The greatest battle he’s ever fought.
Mom’s battle is his battle because they are one. My mom has Parkinson’s, as many of you know, and just recently had her second hip replaced. She’s having some trouble recovering, so she’s still in the hospital doing rehab. Because it took so long to get into surgery, she spent the last 3 months unable to walk at all. Dad, the man used to having dinner served to him for the last 40 years, jumped in with both feet–the only way he knows how too–and learned how to do it all himself.
He cooks. He cleans. He grocery-shops. He gets up multiple times at night to take her to the bathroom. He dresses her, cleans her, and kisses her while he’s at it. He scrubs floors, does dishes, pays bills. He loads her in and out of the car, driving to doctor appointments. And now he sits by her hospital bed, quietly coaching: lets do 10 leg lifts, 5 more windshield wipers, no don’t go to sleep Karen, keep at it, we’ve got to get you home. He’s spent his life with a clipboard in hand and whistle in his mouth, shouting plays and running drills and pushing athletes. Now he sits holding her hand, no whistle, no shouting, but still the most amazing coach I’ve ever known. Ten more, Karen. You can do it, babe.
He loves her.
While there, a young nurse timidly peaks her head in their hospital room.
“Could I ask you a question?” She looks at dad. “You’ve been married for 40 years. I just got married last year and I want to hear from you, because you obviously know. How do you do it?”
Dad smiled and looked at her. “Pray together every day.” He left it at that. I dare say the rest of the sermon was preached through his 24/7 selfless care of his bride. His life preaches whether he knows it or not.
Yesterday he asked me to stop on my way to the hospital and get her some new clothes to wear while she’s there. I prayed my way through Target and found the perfect thing, in her favorite color. Today on the phone dad said, “She’s wearing her new outfit and she looks hot!”
That’s love.
Not just to serve, but to lift up. Not just to coach, but to inspire courage. Not just to sleep at her side but to assure her that she’s beautiful in the midst of a most unbecoming circumstance.
This world offers us very few glimpses of true love.
But this is one.
The 4-West wing of SW Medical Center has seen a little glimpse of Jesus this past week.
So have I.
Thanks, Dad, for showing me what love looks like. You’re amazing.
—
*Good news! Mom is coming home today!
Broken Places
Right now for our Women’s Bible study we’re doing Anointed, Transformed, Redeemed, a great study of the life of David by Priscilla Shirer, Beth Moore, and Kay Arthur. I definitely recommend it! And, because God’s Spirit is always using His Words and His workers in our lives, I so often feel like this study was written only for me.
These first few weeks we been talked a lot about opposition. Specifically, spiritual attack. It is true that when we really begin walking in the anointing and calling that God has on our lives, there will be much spiritual opposition, because there is a real enemy of our souls. He hates God, and hates us so much as we contribute to God’s purposes and bring God glory. An enemy, girls! He is real.
I am not a “see the devil in every corner” kind of girl. But boy oh boy, I am so glad to be doing this study because if not I’d just be wondering what on earth was going on. I see this opposition so clearly right now. And here’s what has struck lately about it:
Satan attacks at our broken places.
Usually the enemy doesn’t even use bad things necessarily to attack or tempt me. He’s too smart for that. What he uses are subtle situations that take advantage of some weak place. A broken place.
Think of an enemy seeking to conquer a walled city. Of course the plan of attack would be to break in wherever the wall is broken, where it is weak, where the coverage isn’t great. Wherever there is a crack of brokenness, the enemy will press on that place to seek to conquer.
I recently experienced one of these attacks. Again, it was not a huge deal, or even a bad thing. But it so triggered an emotional response that I realized, “I have a broken place.”
I had a place in my heart that had somehow believed a lie, or had not been made whole by God’s work and love, and had therefore been allowed to remain in a state of brokenness, a state of weakness. Like that wall. A place of vulnerability to attack.
A broken place is somewhere in our hearts that God has not yet made whole.
This is why at times we can face the fiercest opposition and remain absolutely confident, cool, joyful, steadfast. And then at other times the smallest of circumstances can send us into a heap of tears, cowering, ready to abandon whatever mission God has called us to carry out. We’re ready to quit, because the enemy has discovered our broken place.
But there is good news.
Everything Satan means for harm, God means for good.
Everything.
That means that when Satan discovers the broken place, and calls forth an all-out attack on that vulnerable spot, we can rejoice because he’s just done us a favor–he’s shown us the area that God wants to rebuild.
Last night as I was sharing with Jeff my struggle, I came to a point in my story and, almost to my surprise, my broken cracked with such emotion that I could not speak. And that is the most helpful revelation of all, because it reveals exactly where the broken spot is located.
That crack in my voice revealed the crack in my heart.
And that crack in my heart is exactly what God wants to make whole. Where He wants to touch. Where He wants to bring His soothing, healing, balm. To heal. To restore.
That is hope. And hope never disappoints.
Nothing is more satisfying than seeing an attack turned on its head and used for our good. For God’s good. That is victory, girls.
Let’s take our broken places to God. He wants to make them whole.
Leviticus 21-22: The Perfect Priest, the Perfect Sacrifice
Leviticus 21 really bothered me for the longest time. And it is a little disturbing to read through. Once you finally come up for air after drowning in the sea of bodily discharge and nakedness (Lev. 15), you surface only to find that God is talking about refusing to allow any blemished or blind or lame or hunchback or dwarf come near to offer the LORD’s sacrifice on the altar (21:16-23). In fact, it says
“No one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand…or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles…shall come near to offer the LORD’s food offerings” (19-21).
Come on, what’s the deal with this?
Every time I’d read through this I admit I struggle, “This is exactly why people get such a bad image of God through the OT. I mean, come on God, why’d You have to make yourself sound so mean? It’s not as if a hunchback is a bad person, why are you purposely excluding them from offering sacrifices, and did you have to mention testicles for crying out loud? And what’s wrong with someone having one long limb?? The atheists are going to love poking fun at this passage.” *Sigh* I didn’t get it.
And it still is a rough read. Again this morning I still struggle through it. There’s plenty in Leviticus to struggle through. But take heart.
We have to keep in mind that it wasn’t only these who were excluded from offering sacrifices, of course. The vast majority were excluded. Only the priests (those descendants of Levi) were allowed to even be in the priesthood, and then only those apparently without these unfortunate conditions were allowed to approach the altar to offer sacrifices. There were many other exclusions besides just these bothersome ones that I mentioned. So we have to understand that the norm was exclusion.
The norm in this culture, for the nation of Israel was one of exclusion. Most were excluded from ever being able to approach God’s altar.
In the Old Testament God is communicating His transcendence.
God’s transcendence means that He is altogether above and outside of this world. God is holy. That is the message of Leviticus. He is separate. He is far above. We would never understand the miraculous nature of God’s New Testament rescue mission unless we understand the immeasurable distance between God and man. We first had to understand how uncrossable was the chasm between us. How ill-equipped we were to ever approach God’s throne. God is holy and perfect (Lev. 20:7) and that is the foundation of the gospel.
Therefore, this is what we must get: the book of Leviticus isn’t meant to be a little exclusive, it’s meant to be a LOT exclusive. The message? God priests and his sacrifices must be perfect. Chapter 22 verse21 says,
“And when anyone offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to the LORD to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering from the herd or from the flock, to be accepted it must be perfect; there shall be no blemish in it.” (emphasis mine)
A sacrifice must be perfect. A peace offering must be perfect. There must be no blemish in priest or blemish in sacrifice.
That is the message of Leviticus and that sets the stage for the greatest news the world has ever known.
Christ is our perfect sacrifice, our pure and spotless lamb. And, Christ is our high priest, perfect and blameless. Christ is the ONLY sacrifice that was absolutely perfect and thus able to once and for all make peace between God and. The perfect sin offering, the perfect peace offering. And not only is He the perfect sacrifice, He is the perfect priest. The book of Hebrews sums it up like this:
“And every priest stands daily at [God’s] service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God…For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:11-14).
Not only is He the Perfect Sacrifice, He is also the Perfect Priest, and (here’s the really good news!!) “He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (v.14).
That’s YOU! That’s ME! By the perfect sacrifice by the perfect priest all those who put their faith in Him are being made perfect! As we are sanctified here on this earth, Christ has already perfected us for all time.
Even if one arm is longer than the other.
Even if we have a “defect”, even if we find ourselves on that list (I do!) full of blemishes and shortcomings and imperfections. Even if we know we would never have made it into the “in” crowd of the Old Testament. Even though our sin had separated us from God.
While still remaining a holy God, set apart, above, transcendent, the message of the New Testament is God’s immanence.
God came down. He came near. He is made His dwelling among us (John 1:14) and we have seen His glory, and “from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16).
We have received grace upon grace.
See, friends–even Leviticus is part of the beautiful story of God. He is perfect. Above. Holy. We are hunchbacks–all of us! But He is the perfect priest, the perfect sacrifice, and has perfected us all because everything He touches He makes beautiful.
That is grace upon grace. That is the gospel.